Sunday, October 20, noon – 5 p.m.
Family Museum, 2900 Learning Campus Drive, Bettendorf, IA
Arriving just in time for Halloween, monsters – albeit family-friendly ones – will be haunting the halls of Bettendorf's Family Museum on October 20 in the venue's special event Scarecrow Shenanigans: Monster Takeover, a holiday-themed day boasting activities, crafts, experiments, presentations, displays, performances, and plenty of ghoulish guests.
Among the scheduled first-floor activities: “Haunted Hopscotch,” in which guests can make their feet match a monster’s tracks by jumping, twisting, and hopping their way into the museum; “Floating Monsters,” with air-filled creatures floating up to the building's rainbow ceiling; “Monster Mitten Pals,” in which kids can decorate and stuff their own monster friend with crazy eyes, hair, and other fun features; “The Monster Petting Zoo,” where brave souls can pet shy beasties protected in dark boxes; and “Glow Games,” a lights-out event featuring illuminated activities such as “Monster Feeding,” “Candy Corn Ring Toss,” and more.
Second-floor activities for Scarecrow Shenanigans: Monster Takeover will include a family photo station in which visitors can pose for pictures in the museum's monster picture frame, as well as a pair of interactive happenings: the art room's “Mini Pumpkins,” where guests can get creative and make a masterpiece to take home, and the science room's “Monster Snot,” with kids invited to mix up their own samples of glow-in-the-dark grossness.
Scheduled exhibits include: “Frankenstein's Lab Spooky Room,” with families incited to take a stroll through Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory and witness monsters brought to life; “Monster Projection Rockets,” in which kids can craft their own straw rockets and take aim at monsters under the bed; and “Spooky! Hands-on! Science!”, allowing guests to experiment with magnet monsters and try their hands at eyeball engineering. The Family Museum Dance Company, meanwhile, will stage performances based on Pixar's Monsters, Inc. at 1 and 3 p.m., with FrankenScience, at 2 and 4 p.m., a literally electrifying science show that promises to spark, glow, and light up kids' wildest, monster-iest dreams.
The October 20 Scarecrow Shenanigans: Monster Takeover event runs from noon to 5 p.m. and is free with $5-9 museum admission, and more information and tickets are available by calling (563)344-4106 or visiting FamilyMuseum.org.